Photo: Magdalena Wosinska for the New York Times.
Ian White, an artist, against a burned house across from the park named for his celebrated father, the painter Charles White.
The outside world never knew much about the generations of Black artists enriching life in Altadena — not until after the town burned down.
As Sam Lubell wrote in February at the New York Times, “Before the Eaton fire raced across Altadena, destroying more than 9,000 of its buildings, many, even in nearby Los Angeles, barely knew of the place’s existence. This sleepy 42,000-person hamlet hugging the glowing foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains is not part of that city but an unincorporated community of Los Angeles County, and just far enough off the beaten track to blissfully avoid notice.
“Once typified by its bucolic quirkiness, tight-knit neighborhoods and generations-old churches and businesses, Altadena now consists of row after row of twisted, charred building remains, scorched car chassis, blinking or broken stoplights and the occasional khaki National Guard Humvee. The future, for now, is filled with toxic cleanup, insurance adjustments and conflicting visions for rebuilding.
“Yet the past has gained newfound prominence. With so much gone, Altadena’s histories are being unearthed, by residents, scholars and preservationists who say they may hold a key to making this a special place once again, and provide anchors for those weighing whether to stay.
“One of the most profound of Altadena’s legacies — its spectacular story of Black creative culture — had been buried not only under its seclusion, but also under layers of racial and institutional apathy, the loose accounting of informal memory, and the absence of formal plaques and other preservation markers. The fire has spurred calls for a more rigorous approach to remembrance.
“ ‘Sometimes it takes a tragedy for people to mark history,’ said Brandon Lamar, president of the N.A.A.C.P.’s Pasadena branch, whose own home was destroyed, as was his school, his grandparents’ home and their church. But that destruction, he noted, ‘does not mean that we can’t create public memories in spaces now, so that people can remember this information for generations to come.’
“Starting in the 1950s and ’60s, the west side of Altadena (and parts of neighboring northwest Pasadena not bulldozed for the 210 and 134 Freeways) drew middle-class Black families eager to buy homes.
“Many came because the redlining — discriminatory lending by banks — was less severe here, and some of the schools had been integrated comparatively early. The area became a magnet not just for Black teachers and social workers but also for Black artists from around the country, drawn to its affordability, inventive vibe, gorgeous mountain backdrop and general spirit of permissiveness.
“ ‘It had this energy of bohemian California,’ said Solomon Salim Moore, assistant curator of collections at the Benton Museum of Art at Pomona College. ‘You could have a little less scrutiny and a little more room to do your projects.’
“On Feb. 22, as part the Frieze Los Angeles art fair, a discussion called ‘Land Memories’ will feature artists’ recollections of this unique legacy. The talk will be co-hosted by the Black Trustee Alliance for Art Museums, which will also share oral histories recorded from Altadena artists and residents, and collect new histories.
“Moore, who is also an artist, grew up in Altadena and said that its nonconformist spirit has endured to the present, even as prices have climbed and the Black population has fallen, according to the U.C.L.A. Bunche Center for African American Studies, to about 18 percent from 43 percent in 1980. Artists here, he said, loved that they could set up informal studios or even family compounds, or that they could enjoy little freedoms like hosting parties without friends worrying about permit parking.
“Sometimes creative people need to step away because you need to get out of the light to see,” said Ian White, an artist, teacher and the son of Charles White, the renowned painter and printmaker whose haunting depictions of African Americans, their struggles and dignity, inspired generations of artists. He spent the last 20 years of his life in Altadena and is buried at the community’s Mountain View Cemetery. Ian lives in a house next to his father’s modest home (which he also owns) in the Meadows, a district along Altadena’s west edge that in the 1950s and ’60s became one of the first here to integrate. Virtually all of the Meadows survived the fire.
“Also living west of Lake Avenue (then the unofficial dividing line between white Altadena and Black Altadena) was John Outterbridge, the noted assemblage artist and longtime director of the Watts Towers Arts Center. His home on Fair Oaks Avenue was destroyed, along with much of his archive and family memorabilia, according to his daughter, Tami. The famed enamel artist Curtis Tann lived within walking distance, while the prolific sculptor Nathaniel Bustion, known as Sonny, lived near White in the Meadows. Betye Saar, 98, known for repurposing everyday objects into mystical collages, grew up in a home on northwest Pasadena’s Pepper Street, just blocks from Altadena’s west side.
Sidney Poitier, a good friend of White’s from New York, and the first Black actor to win an Academy Award, rented a home in west Altadena before moving to Beverly Hills.
“Ivan Dixon, the actor and trailblazing director, lived on Marengo Avenue, and the science fiction writer Octavia Butler on Morada Place.
“Later generations of Black artists continued to thrive here, including Mark Steven Greenfield, Yvonne Cole Meo, Senga Nengudi and Michael Chukes, and dozens of others holding down day jobs and creating whenever they could in this secret Eden.
“Charles White, already an established figure when he moved from New York in 1959 for health reasons — he had respiratory problems and was advised to live in a milder climate — would become the glue holding this arts community together. His home and studio, still standing, was a gathering place, with many artists competing for the honor of driving White to or from one place or another. (He didn’t drive.)
“Ian still refers to Dixon, Poitier and Charles’s good friend Harry Belafonte as his ‘fictive uncles.’ He recalled how his father set up the sculptor Richmond Barthé, a cornerstone of the Harlem Renaissance, with an apartment, and how his mother, a social worker named Frances Barrett, was his caregiver until the end.”
More at the Times, here.
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